Crisp & Vibrant Colorization

Photoshop Tutorials

Tutorial

Click on thumbnailed images to enlarge

Your outcome will be..


First, you see this drab ol' picture, nothing special. Well, choose your own drab picture and lets get going! I chose a picture of the wonderful Blake Lewis:



Choose your picture, and open it up in photoshop. If it is large, resize! 300px is a nice size, I'd say.

Now, go to Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Curves and make a mark on the grid. Fill in these, por favore:

RBG
input: 65
output: 63

It should look like this:



Next, go to Layer>>>>New Fill Layer>>Solid Color and use #FFFD33 (bright yellow). Set the layer to Soft Light 100% and it should end up like this:



Next, go to Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Selective Color and fill in these settings:

Neutrals
Cyan: 0
Magenta: 0
Yellow: -90
Black: +100

Make sure it's in Neutrals on the drop down list!

Click okay, and you should end up with this:



Go to Layer>>Merge Visable so your all cleaned up! And this is a must-do or it'll looked messed.

Now duplicate your the base (which should be the only layer on the layer pallete) and make sure it's at the top. Set it to Soft Light 81% opacity.

It should look like this:



Go to Layer>>New Fill Layer>>Solid Color and choose Black. Set the layer to Soft Light 100%. It should look like this:



Now Go to Layer>>New Fill Layer>>Solid Color and choose #03037A (a dark navy blue). Set it to Exclusion. Opacity: 35% Fill: 35%. It should look like this:



Merge all of your layers and go to Filter>>Sharpen. Now, use the sharpen tool and make it about the size of the persons eyeball. Sharpen both eyes, and mouth. It should look like this:



Ahh! Fresh and crisp! You like? Ehh! I think it looks pretty snazzy!

Also, if you'd like to create an awesome little almost-black-and-white-but-it-looks-fresh look that just do this.. Go to Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Hue and Saturation. Set the saturation to -60! It looks pretty cool for a classy look. So, you'd get this:



ENJOY!

Tutorial Comments

Showing latest 2 of 2 comments

i can't get the curves. how my picture looks the same even when i put the curves on?

By invisiblegally on Jan 3, 2008 8:18 pm

good tut!
i LOVE it!! :)

By manny-the-dino on Nov 13, 2007 7:02 pm

Tutorial Details

Author ChristyChaos View profile
Submitted on Nov 12, 2007
Page views 19,497
Favorites 96
Comments 2
Reviewer SinfullySweet View profile
Approved on Nov 12, 2007